


somewhere at the bottom of my brain

by kusege



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: (kinda), Animal Death, Blood, Body Dysphoria, Gen, Identity Issues, Razors, Self-Harm, Spiders, Suicidal Thoughts, also centered around being a spider, centered around being a spider, its accidental but it still counts, this sounds so much darker than it actually is I swear it’s just a character study of a spider boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-11-02 11:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20737514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kusege/pseuds/kusege
Summary: Now that they’re really getting the chance to think about it, Webber isn’t handling the changes to themselves very well. They both deal with it differently.Titles from Make The Grade by Jack Conte.





	1. from a different hand

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [my better half](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9842546) by [caramelchameleon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelchameleon/pseuds/caramelchameleon). 

It is a cold, wet evening. The air is crisp with rain and the sky is dim, but not dark yet. Webber sits, cross-legged, and stares at the spider. It is bigger than they had been, and stares at them as though it is not sure whether to bite or go about its business or greet them. 

Webber reaches out a hand-claw to it, slow, and it skitters over curiously. They pat it on its round body. It feels bristly and cool, and comforting to the touch, and makes something unfamiliar inside them want to tear away screaming in fear and disgust. Humans always seem to feel that way about spiders.

The spider hisses  _ you are different _ , hisses  _ follow me _ , and Webber hisses back _ no, I have something to show you _ . It hisses again, a wordless agreement, and Webber stands up and walks, the spider following. They journey deeper into the forest, to the place where the trees are so dense you can hardly fit between them. There are no nests here. Webber, at the insistence of their human instincts, looks up to check the progression of the sun. It’s half down to the horizon now, but there’s plenty of time before nightfall proper.

They never used to have to worry about this. Night used to be safe and comfortable and the time to hunt, journeying out with family and traversing the world. But they’re different now, weaker. In some ways, they’re improved, they suppose, but they do somewhat miss their original form.

There is one thing they miss the most, they think, as they tackle the spider to the ground and start biting and tearing at it, old memory of fights for dominance among other nests blurring with newer memories of spears and swords and beings that had always left them alone until now. It isn’t fighting like this, they get plenty of it when they start over, especially if they haven’t regathered the knowledge to create better weapons. It’s not fighting other spiders either. The others tend to try to keep them away from it, apparently thinking that it will upset them. It does upset them, the human part, thinking about all those lives being lost, but they’re not that upset. Things die. Other spiders died to their claws and fangs. Their family died to other’s claws and fangs.

They were supposed to die.

As the body in their legs- arms- goes limp, curling up and weakly crying out its last few breaths, Webber watches it closely. Watches the purple blood evenly pouring from the punctures, watches its eyes close, watches its mouth, jaw twitching from venom, still and stay slightly open. They study it.

They try to learn how to die.

They were only meant to have one chance. Every living thing here only has one chance, they know that- except for exceptions, the humans never stay gone, the moon does as it will and dies and reforms constantly- but they have died before, and they will die again.

They were not meant to come back.

It hurts to think about.

The human in the back of their mind sniffles, asks to have their part back please, asks if they can go home and not hurt anything anymore.

Webber spends one last minute staring at the corpse before them. It is empty now, with none of the heat or life it had once had. They were going to be like that, once. Now, they never will. 

They cut into the body with a single claw, pull out a hunk of webbing, slightly dripping with purple gore, and stash it away. They move the corpse up onto a tree branch, feelings unnatural to them urging them to honor the dead. Then, they check the position of the sun. They will make it back in time. There was never a worry.

Webber is quiet that night, in camp, fidgeting and not looking anyone in the eyes. Wendy tries to talk to them, but gets nothing. They’re just some placeless upset. Must be the rain getting to them.

Webber curls in on themself, closes their eyes, and imagines being a spider.


	2. mind is drawing blanks

They get the idea in summer, a flash across their mind that they grab onto faster than their other half can process. The hot sun is difficult for everyone to bear, and Mister Wilson’s razor makes a reappearance as he shaves off the matted mess that usually covers his face (and most of his body) for the majority of the year. The blade is sharp and good for removing hair. They’ve seen people shave before this, their father used to, and now they want to.

Their silk is something they barely even process any more, not what they’re thinking about when they see the sharpened piece of flint. They’re thinking about their skin. It’s so… fuzzy, covered in spider hair, except for on their hands and feet, which are covered with hard stuff that Miss Wickerbottom says is called an exoskeleton. 

They know their skin didn’t use to be fuzzy. None of their human friends have skin like that. Their skin is smooth and mostly hairless, except for their heads and chins and sometimes little bits on their arms and legs. Their skin isn’t hard, either; it’s soft and fleshy, and they bleed red, not purple. They used to bleed red, not purple. Their skin used to be smooth and soft and fleshy everywhere. 

Some of their friends bite their fingernails when they’re scared or seeing the shadows that aren’t actually there. Webber doesn’t really remember having fingernails. He can’t bite his exoskeleton claws, partially because his pointy teeth aren’t as good as his friend’s flat ones at breaking stuff off. He nibbles on his fingers. It’s not the same.

They sneak Mister Wilson’s razor when he leaves for the day. He usually helps them shave off their silk, so he’d ask questions if he saw Webber taking it. They wander off to the part of the forest where the spiders stay, nests left intact to be attacked. They don’t like thinking about that too long, but what matters is that if they go to the middle of the nests people won’t go looking for them. 

The sun is hot, baking them even though the summer’s barely started yet. Spiders aren’t supposed to go out in the daytime, and they don’t like that. They used to love running around in the fields, staying out until the sun got low in the sky and having to go back to the house and get cleaned up and eat dinner and go to bed. But now their skin gets hot really fast, and the sun can set fires, and they can’t spend their days running and playing anymore. They used to cry because they missed it. They try not to, Wendy doesn’t, and now they have friends. It isn’t so bad.

They step carefully, thin spiky claw feet avoiding putting too much pressure on the webs, and sit down in the center of the little ring of spider dens. They sigh, and pull out the razor. They kinda know how to do this. They’re gonna try to do this. The spider part of themselves doesn’t like this idea, saying things about important senses and protection from the elements, so it burrows back into their mind. Webber is alone.

They put the razor on their arm, angling it carefully so that it’ll miss their skin but get the hair real close, and slowly, gently, pull. The fur comes off in gentle waves, a line of dark grey hairs dusting down to the ground. The skin under it is also a dark grey, with a slight purple tint. They move the razor to a different spot, and cut more. Slowly, a small pile of hair grows around their legs. One of their arms is bare now. The sun feels less stuffy. They can feel the air on their skin, and they forgot how cool it is. They switch the razor to their other hand. They’ll get their arms, and see how that all works out.

This is harder, their other hand is weaker and bad at moving, but they stick out their tongue and try to shave just as evenly. They make a few little cuts and scrapes, accidentally catching their skin in a few places, but they’re mostly okay. The purple blood drips down their arm, trickles down to their hand. Webber stares at the cut, eyes seeing but not really seeing. If they let their eyes unfocus, which is harder with eight, they can kinda almost image that the blood is deep, dark red. The sting is just the same as cuts used to be. 

Looking at the purple makes them feel sick. They shouldn’t look like this. They don’t like looking like this. They wanna go back to how they used to be. They aren’t supposed to have eight eyes and hair everywhere and fangs and weird claws that barely have thumbs, they’re supposed to have two eyes that look like their father’s and hair on the top of their head and baby teeth that aren’t done falling out yet and five fingers that may not have spiky bits but that have nails that they can bite. They’re supposed to bleed red.

They set the razor down in the pile of hair they shaved off. Webber sighs, looking at it all. They should probably move it somewhere safe and burn it, so it doesn’t bother the other spiders. They scoop it up and slip off the webs, burning it in a bare patch of earth before heading back to replace the razor. The spider slips back out, cautiously, as they head back to camp.

Miss Wickerbottom scolds them for not asking to take the razor. Mister Wilson gets upset when he sees that Webber shaved their arms on their own. Wendy pokes at the newly exposed skin and says it feels kinda like her own. That seems to perk them up.

Webber hugs themself, closes their eyes, and imagines being human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the complimentary chapter about human shit. This one was actually all my own thoughts! Yay originality!!

**Author's Note:**

> I. Have no idea where this came from??? I was reading a fic that wasn’t even Don’t Starve, remembered caramelchameleon’s my better half, threw in a tiny bit of CravenWyvern’s Minus What You Will, and somehow this whole Webber character study happened. Anyways I hope you liked it.


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